Peer Groups: MSP Centrifuge Partners With Paul Dippell

The MSP Centrifuge, an emerging managed services peer group, has partnered with Service Leadership Inc., Paul Dippell’s well-regarded consulting firm for solutions providers and channel-centric vendors. Meanwhile, the market for MSP peer groups appears to be growing. In addition to MSP Centrifuge and HTG Peer Groups, it sounds like Stuart Selbst is preparing to launch virtual peer groups (online gatherings) for MSPs in the SMB market. Here’s the update.

First, the MSP Centrifuge-Service Leadership Index relationship. According to a press release:

Service Leadership, Inc. and The MSP Centrifuge, a new MSP industry peer group operator, are pleased to announce their strategic partnership to provide The MSP Centrifuge members with Service Leadership Index Quarterly Benchmark Reports designed specifically for peer groups. The Service Leadership Index is the industry’s leading financial and operational benchmark, surveying the broadest Solution Provider population with industry-leading depth and precision, providing the resulting analysis to S-L Index subscribers worldwide.

At MSP-centric conferences over the past two years, I’ve sat in on a few business and financial sessions hosted by Dippell. I always learn something new about sales models, pricing models and compensation plans.

I’m less familiar with The MSP Centrifuge, which launched in 2010. The organization, led by Kevin Gibson and Todd Wahl, positions itself as an “application-centric peer group for Managed Service Providers of all sizes. The MSP Centrifuge is unique in the peer group arena because of the focus on the unification of remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools with Professional Services Automation (PSA) platforms.”

The More the Merrier?

Generally speaking, it’s good to see more education and peer sharing in the managed services market. But I also have to concede… the list of new consulting, educational and peer groups moving into the managed services market is getting pretty long.

Next up, it sounds like Stuart Selbst is preparing to launch a virtual, online peer group for small MSPs (sub-$500,000 in revenues). Details of the effort may emerge in time for the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting (April 6-7, Chicago).

Stuart: I hope all is well. I guess this all gets back to Arlin Sorensen’s life-work balance focus over at HTG Peer Groups. And perhaps an “in office” vs. “out of office” balance. Even in the age of digital communications, I still think face-to-face gatherings are the absolute best way to build profitable, trusted relationships… assuming you carve out a reasonable amount of time without undermining your day-to-day operations.
-jp

I hear you loud in clear, but – without accountability and relationships as well as peer based input how do you solve your problems and grow your business? I think the key is making time for this sort of activity and following through once you carve out the time required. Look at the ROI in this sense – if you do 100k a month in reoccrring revenue from MSP and you set aside the same time it takes to sell to and add an account that pays you 3k a month but get a 5% increase in overall profitability from your participation you are better off investing the time in the peer group. In this case the revenue generation potential is higher than adding the one account and therefore a higher ROI. To me it is well worth finding the time considering the added profit could then pay for another FTE and therefore free up even more time to invest in other areas of the business.

Kevin/Joe…please don’t get me wrong. HTG was the best thing that happened to my business. I like Joe’s approach “in office” vs “out of office” activities. I also believe fully in the “out of IT community” vs. “in IT community” activities. I know many IT business owners who get a tremendous amount of value from EO and Vistage because of the different approach.

There are many things going on in our industry. Different events etc..lots of things that can consume the time of the average MSP. I have seen it.

When you are part of a peer group, I beleive that virtual and live activities are key to the growth of the peers and the group. One of main reasons that I will be starting virtual peers groups is to keep a very high level of accountability, plus the groups will be meeting live at least twice a year. It takes both, but at a very high level of accountability.

I will be releasing more details of our SMB Peer Groups in the next week or so.

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